What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 06:48 AM

By the way, Jim, meant to say that I'm not quite sure of the relevance of the link to listings of so called 'folk metal' bands, but with that 'genre' it seems to me that the justification for using the word 'folk' is merely down to adding a 'traditional' instrument in to the mix and very little to do with the songs they are performing.

Very different to what I do with The Bounty Hounds, where the justification for using the term 'folk'/rock is that a large number of the songs we perform are ones that neither you or I would have difficulty in calling a 'folk' song ;)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 06:34 AM

Jim, so we're happy to deviate from 1954 which does specify 'oral' to allow modern forms of transmission, yes?

So the only issue we're left with then if I'm understanding correctly, is ownership. Am I over simplifying what you've said by saying that a new song can become 'folk' if we don't know who wrote it and other people sing it?

Now to my way of thinking, our modern songwriters, whilst living in a very different society, are really no different to songwriters of 300 years ago. The only difference is that means of transmission.

When our songwriter of 300 years ago wrote their song, they were not writing 'folk' music, because the term had not been coined, but merely writing a song, which brings me back to my belief that 'folk music' is a term we have created to identify or catagorise that 'style' of song. Therefore, I come back to my belief that if a new song is of that 'style', respects and acknowledges the tradition upon which it is based, then there is no issue with calling it a 'folk' song, regardles of knowing who wrote it.

John

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 06:05 AM

fields of athenry , has all of the above attributes but has the bonus that it is sung by football crowds ,definitely a new song thats become folk song.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 06:02 AM

yes,
here in ireland they have both been taken up by the general public, as has caledonia, they are almost as well known as the wild rover. fiddlers green on several occasions has been entered in gaa scors the singers assuming its irish trad and even the judges not disqualifying it because its english contemporary, its assumed like shaols of erin[sic] that itsd trad

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 05:27 AM

To revert to the original question, there seems to be no hard and fast rule over what might be regarded as 'folk' in the wider sense. Songs written in a style which reflects traditional styles seem to qualify without much disagreement (even from Jim!). Other songs seem to pass muster if they are performed in a recognisably 'folky' style (let's not discuss what that means!), even pop songs in some circumstances.

Established folk performers seem to be permitted a bit more latitude than mere floorsingers. I don't recall ever hearing Elvis covers, but Nic Jones would play Buddy Holly, in his own style of course. Swan Arcade did a cracking version of the Kinks' 'Lola'. June Tabor's version of 'Love will tear us apart' is approached no differently from her band's arrangements of both modern songs with a more folky pedigree or traditional ballads. Of course, in all these cases these form part of a much broader repertoire which included traditional songs.

It's an aesthetic judgement rather than something which can fall within a definition. What a performer can get away with will depend on the ethos of the club and the tastes of the audience. The same goes of course for treatments of traditional songs.

I think what is usually expected from such songs is that the lyrics should be intelligent (and intelligible) and make a point or carry a message, and often have a narrative. This would seem to rule out a lot of pop songs, no matter how they are performed.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 05:17 AM

"taken up by the non folk general public,so is it a folk song? it appears to be written in folk style, but why has it not been taken up, in the same way that dirty old town or fiddlers green"
,..,

Not too sure I agree with your ground here, Dick. Those two songs, and some others one could name [see thru the thread] will certainly be known to all folk-club-going people such as readers of this forum. But do you really think there are any members of your "non folk general public" who would recognise them by mention -- even if they had happened maybe just once or twice to hear them on tv or radio? I honestly don't think so. Does anyone?

≈M≈

Or any other song familiar to our interests either, for that matter, with exception maybe of ones they learned at school, or one or two others in the smallish [for true folk] "everybody knows" category like eg "My Bonny" or "Loch Lomond" or "Oh No John" (and this last one, not even in a version we would acknowledge, at that!).

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 04:47 AM

i have never heard anyone sing the clayton analine song, it is a well written song but does not appear to have been taken up by the non folk general public,so is it a folk song? it appears to be written in folk style, butwhy has it not been taken up, in the same way that dirty old town or fiddlers green has been.
"Nowadays, even if you sing a newly made song in a club, or even a song created a couple of centuries ago, the club has to pay a P.R.S or I.M.R.O. levy"
incorrect,again.
if the song is trad, the arrangement may be copyrighted but not the song, but that is up to the performer, it is voluntary and the amount is not worth claiming for, likewise new songs it is up to the composer, 99per cent do not bother, because the performers know it could jeopardise the future of the club, because by doing so the prs team go round and ask for more money from the publican. as a professional performer I can speak from experience on this one, the vast majority of perfprmers ignore it because they know that the pittance they get and the upset it causes to the publican is not worth the threatened closure of the club. nearly all singer song writers do not bother unless it is an arts centre or radio or tv, that is what happens in reality.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 04:30 AM

No tune I can compare it to but I thin I have a notated version in one of our old 'New City Songsters' if anybody wants a copy.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 04:09 AM

Another great post, Jim. Many thanks for all your input here. And a fine song indeed. Is it set to any specific tune, or was tune original?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 03:56 AM

"a song has to be transmitted and re-distributed orally,"
A SONG CAN BE TRANSMITTED ORALLY - IN PRINT - VIA ELCTRONIC RECORDING - THROUGH FILM..... IN ANY WAY YOU CAN THINK OF THAT ONE PIECE OF INFORMATION PASSES FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER - AND STILL BECOME A FOLK SONG.
At one time, and in certain communities, people were making songs, passing them on by whatever means they had to hand, and other people were taking them up, singing them and taking ownership of them, so that a song that may have originated in, say Norfolk, could end up in Somerset, or Lancashire or Cumbria, or any part of Ireland or Scotland, and become a Somerset or Lancastrian..... or wherever it happened to land song - the new recipients would regard it as theirs, as speaking for them, as being part of their history - it would become part of their voice just as much as it was the voice of the original creator.
That is part of how folk songs were created and that is what is no longer happening.
A song made today remains the property of the creator - it continues to bear his/her name, quite often it carries an instruction that if you want to make it generally known, you have to pay for the privilege of doing so.
Nowadays, even if you sing a newly made song in a club, or even a song created a couple of centuries ago, the club has to pay a P.R.S or I.M.R.O. levy.
Folk songs were public property - no individual claimed ownership of them, in most cases nobody even knew who created them - they were virtually all anonymous.
It is still possible for folk songs to be created where the circumstances are still in existence.
The Irish Travellers we recorded in London were still making songs concerning their lives and experiences as late as the late 1980s - they possibly still are, though the urbanisation and the loss of the old trades make that less and less likely as the communities dissipate into houses "The old ways are changing".
We recorded several - in none of the cases we could not find who made them.
Children were making songs until recently - I don't hear of or see many of them skipping or bouncing balls, those activities which led to the creation of songs - there may be a song tradition arising from mobile phones, but I've yet to hear of it.
Football chants have some claim to being 'folk' - I personally don't find them particularly interesting or artistically creative, they don't say much other than "We are the greatest".
There was a great new song-making tradition in the 50s and 60s with The Aldermaston Marches and the Holy Loch Protests - songs being created on the spot and passed down the marches - doesn't happen now.
Some new songs have taken teetering steps towards becoming folk - we've recorded Freeborn Man and Shoals of Herring from Travellers on several occasions - their becoming folk songs depends entirely on the Travellers and any other community who might take them up retaining a living tradition capable of transmitting songs so they become everybody's property other than just the composers'.
I'm delighted that people are still making songs using the old forms - I've just been looking at Eric Winter's 'Flowers of Manchester and remembering the first time I heard it sung at Terry Whelan and Harry Boardman's club in Manchester all those years ago - it moved the audience to tears, including me (and I detest football) .
It should have become a folk song but it didn't - ir remains Eric Winter's great song - I haven't even heard it sung for forty years.
Another song, by Pete Smith, a shop steward from Manchester who wrote about his experiences working in the factory which manufactured dyestuffs for the textile industry - had all the elements to become a folksong - most people have never heard of it - can find no trace of it.   
The process that once created folk songs no loner exists, the opportunity for us to claim songs that other people wrote as our own no longer exists, if we want to issue them electronically, we have to pay for the privilege, even if we sing them at clubs, there is now a good chance that we will have to pay for the privilege of doing so, the bulk of which will disappear into the bank accounts of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles or the Michael Jackson estates.   
The revival democratised and freed up a wonderful corpus of song and music for us all to perform and listen to and claim as our own - that has now been replaced by a dwindling number of venues which might or might not present folk songs, but the tendency seems to be as far away from that music as you can possibly imagine.
MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND
I'm not entirely satisfied with the existing definition, but at least I have something to point to and say - "that's what I mean".
I have hundreds and books and albums I can direct people to who might be interested and say, "that's where to look if you want to read or listen to folk songs".
If somebody wants a fairly comprehensive list of them, I'd direct them to the Roud index - most of them are covered there.
Hopefully, before the end of the year our County library will put up on their website, 400 plus songs we have recorded over the last 40 years in this area, many of them containing the social and political (and sometimes personal) history of the people who lived here
Over the last year I have been taking in masses of information about the place I now live in and the people who once lived here, just by annotating the songs.   
The people we met were incredibly generous in giving us their songs, many of them became life-long friends - we now have been given the opportunity of returning those songs to where they really belong - a great privilege.
If the songs are taken up and sung, if song manages to become as popular here as traditional music has become, it will mean that the songs will survive for the forseeable future, as entertainment and as as an essential part of the unwritten history of West Clare.
I'm a bit chuffed about that
Jim Carroll

THE CLAYTON ANILINE SONG
Pete Smith, Mancester mid 1960s

1 Been working at dyework for nearly five years ,
Been charging the naptha's that give yer the **pap,
They send it from *ICKY for us to shove in
This **vitrol and chloric as makes us all thin.

2 Well I rise up for Clayton at five in the morn,
And for smoke and for fumes, yer can't see the dawn,
I'm releivin' old Albert, he's been here all night,
The poor old bugger looks barely alive.

3   His chest is sunk in and his belly's popped out out,
And believe me, my friends,! t's not bacco or stout –
It's the **napthas and paras have rotted his bowels,
While making bright colours for Whitsuntide clothes.

4 I gave him my ****milk ration and packed him off home,
I' ve five tons of this naphtha to charge on me own,
I'm wet through with steam and the sweat of me back
And through wieldin' this shovel, I'm beginning to crack.

5 Well I'm damned if I'll work in this hole any more,
For my belly feels tight and my chest is right sore-
I think of old Albert his face white and drawn,
He'll be back here tonight and just prayin' for dawn.

*    I.CI.- Imperial Chemical Industries nicknamed "ICKEY'
**   Chemicas for dye-making
**   Paploma of the bowel – cancer caused by fumes from dyestuff    manufacture
**** A pint of milk was given to each worker each day to 'ward off' cancer.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 03:40 AM

clap - i bet they broke out the champagne when you finished that one Mike!

i just want to add my thanks to Jim for his industry in replying to all these various attacks on his position, which is after all his opinion which he he is entitled too.

i can't imagine Roy Harris himself being unfriendly to anybody who sang anything at one of his evenings. he is a very friendly charming person.
i gave up on cambridge after one visit in 1974. three days without having a civilised shit....!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 03:08 AM

No I don't really feel wound up. See your points, in the main. I think there's a lot of misremembering. I can recall few clubs even from my early scene days in the 50s which were all traditional -- indeed, as oldies among us will recall, Roy Harris et al in Nottingham had to advertise the fact that contemp wasn't welcome in the very name of their club, NTMC - the TM standing for Traditional Music. Likewise the early festivals -- I was at the first Cambridge, 1965, and reviewed many of the subsequent ones for Cambridge Evening News, The Guardian &c, from 70s on; very mixed content: especially from the later 80s onwards, where the traditional was performed, on suffrance as it felt, in a separate marginalised small tent called "The Traditional Stage" -- true, as I live & breathe! I ended my review of the last I went to "I shan't go again", and didn't.

In the mainly traditional Cambridge Crofters Club, otoh, despite Ian's suggestion above of unacceptability of any such a procedure, I once won gratifying applause some time in the 1970s for a 10-minute-+ version of Rosie Anderson; one of my happier memories of yore.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 02:45 AM

Somehow Michael, I doubt I would search for pictures of you on a porn site..

The folk clubs I used to know were where my love of traditional music was, in luvvie language Michael understands, awakened. I too regret the demise of the more concert orientated club and I certainly don't call a collection of people with songbooks singing three chord Paxton folk clubs. That said, I enjoy popping out to a few locally. I am sure there would be a drift to the bar before I got less than half way through Famous Flower of Serving Men, yet if you sing Dylan's Percy's Song, about the same time taken, you get cheered...

Yet what I do know is that the idea of categorising and demanding led to the demise of the popular clubs, not the introduction of different takes on tradition or contemporary songs and styles.

That is my beef. Not winding up for windup sake as Michael and Jim feel, but pricking the bubble of pomposity. Folk is indeed folk.

This isn't M&S folk.
This is subjective folk.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Sep 14 - 12:00 AM

"Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?"
.,,.
Why, the fucking boring traddies' side, to be sure. Folk is folk is folk, as Gertrude Stein didn't say...

Sorry if you're bored; but this is a folk & blues thread, dontchano. If you don't want to be bored, I understand there are lots of porn sites easily clickable covering all tastes & perversions...

Regards from the ranting, hair-tearing

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 07:11 PM

It all depends where you're starting from.

If you want to have a good night out listening to (and singing) a wide variety of songs sung by amateurs - some of them familiar, some less so, some brilliant, some mediocre - then a 'folk club' of the kind Musket has been going to all these years will be right up your street. And fair enough - it's a free country.

If, on the other hand, you want to listen to (and sing) traditional songs and new songs in traditional forms, you're going to have to be very selective indeed in your choice of club.

To me this whole argument hinges on whether you think that's a bad thing - which in turn hinges on how much you care about traditional songs surviving in performance.

Having said that, I make no apology for saying without qualification that it is a damn shame that folk clubs have drifted so far from their roots in traditional song. I know it's one opinion among many, but it's my opinion, and as such I believe it to be correct.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 05:08 PM

We get used to it..,

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 05:01 PM

Jim, I'm still confused, as indeed you appear to be!

'"so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs,"
Why - your train of logic totally escapes me?
What has oral and written transmission have to do with the creation of folk songs - which concerns acceptance and re-distribution?

So, you've just said very clearly that to be 'accepted' as a 'folk' song, a song has to be transmitted and re-distributed orally, in which case, surely oral transmission has everything to do with the creation of a 'folk' song, but then when I paraphrase what you've said about oral transmission, you come out the the blinding statement 'You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time. and then in the very next line, tell us that the 'folk process' has stopped.

Is it any wonder that certain people have become irritated if you can't be consistent with your own arguments?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 04:38 PM

Which side are you on?
Which side are you on ?

The Traddies rant and tear their hair
And shout 1954!
But if they care so much for music
They'd see they're a fucking bore

Which side are you on ?
Which side are you on?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:49 PM

" If you did and behaved as you do on here, you would certainly be asked to leave."
You mean speak my mind - that seems to have sorted that one out
"Don't worry. You've got Teribus on your side."
And you have the Mudcat stalker on yours - making us both safe and warm
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:38 PM

"Not too long ago we could go to a folk club and know we would hear a song that fell within a limited range of styles of composition based on folk forms"

That makes me think you were either remarkably lucky in the types of clubs you visited or were, perhaps unconsciously, selective. In my own area I could expect to hear a very wide range of styles. However in those days there were plenty of clubs to choose from, and I could go to those which were to my taste and ignore the others. Nowadays with far fewer clubs about it is perhaps more difficult to find a club to one's taste.That doesn't mean the others were being dishonest in describing themselves as folk clubs. You got to know which ones to visit, or avoid, by their reputations.

Honesty doesn't always work. One club in my area started up with the intention of breaking down barriers, so it called itself a 'music club'. On the opening night among the usual suspects from the local folk clubs there were a couple of unfamiliar, and better-dressed, women. As the first performer stood up with his acoustic guitar one of them said, "Oh my God, it's a FOLK club!" and they both left.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:27 PM

Jim Carroll
Is the aggressive way you conduct yourself here what the punters have tpo put up at Lewes?

You never come to our club so the need never arises. If you did and behaved as you do on here, you would certainly be asked to leave.

Don't worry. You've got Teribus on your side.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 02:22 PM

"yet again a post from someone who sees aggression w"
We are in the middle of an argument in which neith of us is being particularly polite to one another
As I was told by teachers when I was a child "speak when you are being spoken to and mind you own business - nobody is talking to you
Back off and stop stalking - you are becoming creepy.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 01:38 PM

"Is the aggressive way you conduct yourself here what the punters have to put up at Lewes?"
yet again a post from someone who sees aggression where there is none, and then makes a slur upon a LEWES folk club organiser.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 12:20 PM

"so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs,"
Why - your train of logic totally escapes me?
What has oral and written transmission have to do with the creation of folk songs - which concerns acceptance and re-distribution?
Songs that were both orally and literally (on broadsides and ballad sheets) remained and became folk songs because the folk embraced them claimed them as part of their culture and identity.
Part of that acceptance was the remaking of them in order to adapt them to their own circumstances.
Unfortunately, literacy also helped freeze the songs in the form they were first received - this is one of the problems in discussing the effects of literacy on folk songs - nothing is as easy as it first appears.
"That isn't a hard definition, Jim. You can't expect every club in the country to have their own mini Jim Carroll sitting in the corner issuing his stamp of approval."
No I don't Bryan - I do wish you would stop misinterpreting what I have said over and over again.
Not too long ago we could go to a folk song know we would hear a song that fell within a limited range of styles of composition based on folk forms - this was a generally accepted expectation which can be heard on productions like Voice of the People, Folk Songs of Britain, and the vast majority of the Ealy Topic output.
This is no longer the case - is this what YOU are in favour of?
" a folk club is offering heavy metal as part of the mix"
Didn't say London but yes - a Scots club has offered just that.
Is the aggressive way you conduct yourself here what the punters have tpo put up at Lewes?   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 12:03 PM

I remember Fred Jordan being asked far more regularly for his "pregnant pause" rendition of grandfather's clock than any dirge about cutting reeds or other agricultural ballad.

Jim. You end up arguing against your own bloody comments. At least be consistent!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:39 AM

'I don't know why you say this, other than that you want to believe it. Do you live in a world where ordinary people sing while they work and sing around the fire (or around the piano) when they get home? I don't. That's the society in which the folk process flourished, just as a society with horse-drawn transport is the society in which blacksmiths made a living.'

Phil, I do believe it, because I see it happening, as I've explained previously, the difference is the way the process works in our technology driven society, new folk songs are being created, but shared in different ways, so the process does continue.

And Jim, I was not going to come back to you again, but must on this one, '"can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion"
You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time.' so is this an acknowledgement that there can be new folk songs, and that they do not have to go through the process of oral transmission to qualify as such? Havn't you been telling us all along that a song has to go through 'the process' to be a 'folk' song? Yet now you very clearly say this is not the case!

However, I'm confused, as you then seem to contradict yourself in the very next statement '"the folk process has largely stopped."
Yes it has, that's why folk songs are no longer being made - the machinery went bust.

Can't have it both ways!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:36 AM

Just like to say, I once heard Fred Jordan sing The Fields of Athenry.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:33 AM

Jim Carroll
I expect to here the songs I have been listening to for the last half century alongside new songs created using the forms used to create the songs I have become used to.
That isn't a hard definition, Jim. You can't expect every club in the country to have their own mini Jim Carroll sitting in the corner issuing his stamp of approval. I'm afraid that some of them have Musket or Big Al sitting in the corner. What gives your voice more authority than theirs?

I should be able to select the music I hear by what it sounds like, not by what somebody chooses to call it,
Perhaps you should, but you can't. As Howard has patiently pointed out to you "folk music" has had a far wider and less well defined meaning to the majority of people who use it than you would like. This has been true for a very long time, quite possibly since before 1954. I'm afraid you can't reshape the world to how you want it to be. The Singers Club and Court Sessions, despite not saying in their names what they did, lived on their reputations. ake a little time and find out the reputations of clubs you might visit. Sometimes you have to go beyond SOUP and read the list of ingredients on the tin and ask for other people's opinions.

My impression of what is happening today came from a quick thumb through was is on offer today - much reduced, very little tradition-based and including everything I wrote.
I would have given up bothering but this intrigues me. Are you actually saying that a venue in London that describes itself as a folk club is offering heavy metal as part of the mix? Could you give me a reference?

but never (in my hearing) in a folk club
So folk clubs (back then) weren't really reflecting what traditional singers did?

I doubt if you'll have the Mudcat stalker on your back for being insulting!
Arrogant little prat.

I've always believed your club to be worthy of respect - it's you own expressed attitude that has undermined that opinion
We'll just have to wait and see what affect that has on attendance figures. My only attitude expressed in this thread is that your contention that traditional and traditional form music has been largely driven out of UK folk clubs does not accord with my own experience and that, as someone deeply involved with folk music in the UK now (not 14 and more years ago) I am in a better position to know than you. Why that should make the Lewes Saturday Folk Club any less worthy of respect, I don't know.

In forty years,I have never, ever, not once, at all heard anyone sing an Elvis song in a folk club of any sort size or description. Ever.

Dammit! I really have got things to do.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:29 AM

Like the unexplained desire to name whatever non-Classical song one likes a "folksong," many people want very much to believe that a "folk process" of transmission and *creative alteration* is still going strong.

Except for a few minor genres like rugby songs and marching cadences, this is obviously not true. Media culture and copyright enforcement are inherently inimical to the "folk process." The small alterations made by singers in clubs and elsewhere are generally so trivial that they attract little interest.

Part of the reason is that the attitudes expressed in traditional songs no longer resonate. Has anybody significantly revised or extended, say, "Bonnie Bunch of Roses" in a way that would interest a 21st century "collector"? (Songs in tradition anyway were usually shortened rather than extended; improvement frequently came from abridgment.)

The "folk process" now applies more meaningfully to folk tunes, but even there most people seem to be learning them mainly from the same books and recordings and struggling to "get it right."

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:07 AM

No, Phil. But they sing at football matches. Children still use songs & chants for playground games -- many based on creative variants of some of the ads they have seen while watching telly instead of singing round the fire or the piano. Various aspects of folklore & its transmission persist. Some few of their products might well enter a tradition orally. New processes don't always drive out older ones. Often they coexist.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 11:07 AM

"apparently never sung them in folk clubs (debatable)"
Debate away - lots of the older generation of singers sang music hall songs, Fred Jordan springs to mind - no information on what they called them - have you?
The 'folk process' continues,"
Repeating this as often as you like doesn't make it in any way a fact until you produce evidence that it is happening.
Writing new songs is certainly still happening - to become folk songs they have to be claimed by 'the folk' and not the folkie greenhouse horticulturalists (c) - (just copyrighted this term - please don't use it without paying the P.R.S. boyos!)
"can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion"
You are on your own on this one - it has long been acknowledge that this is not the case and you are the only one I have heard to suggest it in a long time.
"the folk process has largely stopped."
Yes it has, that's why folk songs are no longer being made - the machinery went bust.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:58 AM

the 'process' has not died, but continues in a different way

I don't know why you say this, other than that you want to believe it. Do you live in a world where ordinary people sing while they work and sing around the fire (or around the piano) when they get home? I don't. That's the society in which the folk process flourished, just as a society with horse-drawn transport is the society in which blacksmiths made a living.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:26 AM

yes. it is possible, i believe dirty old town, fiddlers green caledonia are all examples, songs that the general public in ireland and england regularly mistake for tradational.
jim, stop this crap about stalking, that is in fact flaming on your part.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:23 AM

Jim saying that Walter Pardon knew music hall songs but apparently never sung them in folk clubs (debatable) reminds me that Tom and Bertha Brown used to do a comedy song of mine





In folk clubs

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:13 AM

'Oral transmission of songs sung by ordinary people is - or was - a distinct social process. Traditional songs are - by and large - songs that have come out of that process.'

Phil, I totally agree with that statement, but the purpose of this 'debate' is to establish whether it is possible to have a NEW folk song. The 'folk process' continues, but as I pointed out, and you in part acknowledged, society and technology have changed, the 'process' has not died, but continues in a different way, so I stand by what I said earlier, that the notion that a song can ONLY be a folk song if it was the subject of oral transmission is an outdated romantic notion!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 10:04 AM

A friend wanted the words to Bonny Bunch of Roses recently. I cut and pasted the words into an email and included an MP3 of me singing it. 1954 never saw that one coming...

That's what I'd do too. Like I said, society's changed - & the folk process has largely stopped.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:44 AM

On the matter of whether other methods of transmission than purely the 'oral' element have a part to play in the folk process, I reproduce here FWIW a contribution of mine to an old thread about a children's song & its transmission from 5 years ago, which I think might have some bearing on this aspect of the topic

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat's Eye
From: MGM·Lion - PM
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:46 AM
BTW — we recently had a long thread on what was the Folk Process, or whether it even existed. Well, isn't this an example of the way it can work?
Consider - I learned a children's song in 1956 from a friend who remembered it from his early E London days. Two years later it took the fancy of Sandy Paton who became a friend while he was visiting London. Exactly 40 years later he posted it, most courteously attributed to me, as part of a thread about its tune. This thread got refreshed 10 years later, & the words caught the eye of Joy in Australia, who started this thread about it, ref-ing Sandy's 11-yr-old post. I saw this & revealed myself as Sandy's acknowledged source, & named my source;, which brought a response from Hootenanny, who comes from the same part of London, with a recognisable variant of the same song.
I mean, the Folk Process might not work quite as it did when Kidson & Gavin Greig, Sharp & the Hammonds, Moeran & RVW, were all at work. But doesn't this show that modern means of communication, like The Web e.g., have their part to play also?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:37 AM

" I've been asking you with no satisfactory response. "
I've responded through these discussion - that you find them unsatisfactory is unfortunate.
I expect to here the songs I have been listening to for the last half century alongside new songs created using the forms used to create the songs I have become used to.
I should be able to select the music I hear by what it sounds like, not by what somebody chooses to call it, whatever it might sound like.
Your following point should have been answered by what I have just written.
My impression of what is happening today came from a quick thumb through was is on offer today - much reduced, very little tradition-based and including everything I wrote.
Yes - Walter Pardon did sing music-hall songs - and parlour ballads and early 20th century pop songs, but never (in my hearing) in a folk club and whenever we broached the subject, he filled tape after tape explaining the difference between the songs he sang - I've put some of what he had to say up on this forum and I'm happy to send anybody a copy of the article Pat and I wrote on how Walter regarded his songs ("Walter Pardon, A Simple Countryman? ((question mark essential)).
"How hard did you look? "
Hard enough - now and the last time we visited London.
I understood that Court Sessions closed when Dave East fell ill - would be delighted to know this is not the case.
"Why let the facts get in the way"
Unnecessary Brian, though I doubt if you'll have the Mudcat stalker on your back for being insulting!
I made a mistake - my apologies.
I've always believed your club to be worthy of respect - it's you own expressed attitude that has undermined that opinion
Jim Carroll
"(Who the $*!&# are Leiber and Stoller or Otis Blackwell?)"
Elvis's source of material - look 'em up

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:25 AM

"The oral tradition".

A friend wanted the words to Bonny Bunch of Roses recently. I cut and pasted the words into an email and included an MP3 of me singing it. 1954 never saw that one coming...

Mind you, my niece complained a while back that her daughter. "Face booked" from upstairs to say when she would be ready for her tea.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:22 AM

Very many thanks, Jim, for letting us see your interesting letter from 15 years ago [I estimate from internal refs to 34 years &c]. Still valid and thought-provoking, indeed.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:05 AM

Jim Carroll
I'm asking what Bryan believes I should be allowed to expect from a club that calls itself 'folk' - if anything

I don't see why I should answer that. It is pretty much what I've been asking you with no satisfactory response. Howard has given a good answer which you have, in your usual style, brushed aside.

I said that nobody goes to a folk club waving a copy of '54 demanding that they adhere to what it says, me, least of all.

I came into this discussion when you said -
Walk into a folk club and you your probably be told "Piss off, we don't need a definition" - and quite likely be asked to leave, judging by the way some of these discussions end up.
I need a fairly solid definition for whet we choose to do
So, what is that "fairly solid definition"? It just seems to be whatever Jim Carroll approves of.

"My point is that the state of folk clubs in the UK is not as you describe it."
Seems it is Bryan - just thumbed though lists of English Clubs - nearly all monthly where they used to be weekly
Moving the goalposts? Your contention has been that there is little or no traditional or traditional style music or song to be heard and that it has been displaced by modern pop and everything from heavy metal (really?) to music hall (Walter Pardon sang music hall songs.). That is not my experience.

couldn't find many more than half a dozen in the London area that remotely lived up to the description 'folk'
How hard did you look? You reckon the Court Sessions closed last year despite the fact that it is still running.

isn't yours monthly?
No and it wouldn't have been hard for you to check. Why let the facts get in the way? Lewes Saturday Folk Club. We are weekly, run about 15 all-day workshops and ballad forums a year and have started trying out Singing for Beginners workshops. Most of our residents run other sessions and singarounds outside the formal club environment and most are performers in their own right. We help run a small festival. We keep ourselves fairly busy.

There's nothing subjective about this - one of the great arguments in the past has been "I know a folk song when I hear one"
Wonderful. Redefining "subjective" before your very eyes.

(Who the $*!&# are Leiber and Stoller or Otis Blackwell?)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:04 AM

"What it fails to take account of is that folk clubs of any description are first and foremost where people go for entertainment, not academic study. "
I've never challenged that Howard, I know it to be the case, if for no other reason that this is why I became involved in the first place - God bless the Liverpool Spinners.
Where academic study came into the picture was in that work that went into amassing and making available the body of work on which the revival was given a basis - By Sharp and his cronies, The Library of Congress, and later, by the B.B.C. collecting project.
It was the results of that which drew us into the unique music we/they/I call(ed) 'folk'
When that base dwindled to the point of almost non-existence, the term 'folk' became meaningless on the club scene.
If the Royal Opera House began presenting 'Starlight Express' and 'Cats' as opera because Aida wasn't putting enough bums on seats, how much integrity would it be left with - I'm sure there would be a team of officianados (and accountants) ready to argue that because opera is largely sung narrative, both of these could be regarded as "new opera".
I agree with you totally that much of this can be traced back to the folk boom, but even Dylan, a somewhat shrewd businessman, drew a line in the sand and moved on "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" - sadly, many of his followers didn't.
Some of what Dylan and his ilk were producing in the early days could be traced back to folk forms '50s rock nights' most certainly cannot.   
"a song has to be passed around 'orally' that makes it folk music"
That has never been an argument and it isn't here.
I've always been aware that prnt has played a part in the transmission of the songs, in the latter days, an essential one.
How the songs are passed on is immaterial, all the other points I outlined about them being taken up up to the point that they no longer belong to any particular individual is the bit you have either missed or ignored.
"Jim, if you joined us in the 21st century, you might just find that the process you describe above is still happening"
It may be happening among the folkie Freemasons, but it is not happening among the folk, who have become passive recipients of their culture.
What they receive will never belong to them - especially when it comes with a little (c).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 09:02 AM

There's nothing 'romantic' about the stress on oral transmission and adoption of songs by ordinary people, BH - that's a bit like saying that you can learn karate from a book, and learning with a sensei is an old-fashioned and 'romantic' notion.

Oral transmission of songs sung by ordinary people is - or was - a distinct social process. Traditional songs are - by and large - songs that have come out of that process.

Society changes; nobody's going to walk five miles into town if they can get the bus. The 'folk process' started to die out, in Britain at least, as soon as the mechanical reproduction of music reached a mass level, and now it's pretty much extinct.

It strikes me that your argument is the romantic one - you're starting from the position that the folk process must still be alive and fitting the evidence to that conclusion. When Jim draws a line under the folk process - it flourished in certain conditions, those conditions aren't there any more, the folk process has more or less died out - he's being a hard-headed realist.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:22 AM

> this sort of folk is perhaps a lot closer to its roots in the American tradition than it is to our own

Only insofar as it was influenced by the blues (most of which, by the '54 def, is not "folk") and Woody Guthrie (ditto).

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:17 AM

"experimentation has replaced committment" another incorrect statement, from someone who appears to be out of touch with the uk folk scene. check out Stings writings about tyneside and the wilson familys singing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkcqtRyGsKg Sting and The Wilson Family - Ballad of the Great Eastern
In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel,, Would build the greatest ship afloat, and rule the ocean's swell., Nineteen thousand tons of steel they us...
Sting and The Wilson Family - Show Some Respect
Show some respect on this deck for the dear departed,, Gather ye's round let's be bound by the work we started,, Save all your strength for the length...
Sting and The Wilson Family - Hadaway
Ah, ye've gotta be joking, yr tekkin' the piss,, I'd have to be stupid to go on wi' this,, I wasn't born yesterday, or even last week,, It's someone w...
Sting, Brian Johnson and The Wilson Family - Sky Hooks and Tartan Paint
Me first day in the shipyard, the gaffer says to me,, "I want ye to go to the store lad and get a few things, ye see?, Now here's a list, can ye read ...
Sting, Jimmy Nail, The Wilson Family and Rachel Unthank - What Have We Got?
Good people give ear to me story,, Pay attention, and none of your lip,, For I've brought you five lads and their daddy,, Intending to build ye's a sh...
Sting, Brian Johnson, Jimmy Nail, The Wilson Family and Jo Lawry - Shipyard
Ah, me name is Jackie White and I'm foreman of the yard,, And ye don't mess with Jackie on this quayside., Why I'm as hard as iron plate, woe betide y...
Sting, Tony Kadleck, Marcus Rojas, Chris Komer, Jeff Kievit, The Wilson Family, Mike Davis, Richard Harris and Bob Carlisle - The Last Ship (Reprise)
Aye, the footmen are frantic in their indignation,, You see, "The Queen's took a taxi herself to the station!", Where the porters, surprised by her la...
Sting, Tony Kadleck, Marcus Rojas, Chris Komer, Jeff Kievit, The Wilson Family, Mike Davis, Richard Harris and Bob Carlisle - The Last Ship
It's all there in the gospels, the Magdalene girl, Comes to pay her respects, but her mind is awhirl., When she finds the tomb empty, the stone had be...

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Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:15 AM

I don't think I am missing Jim's points, in fact I agree with most of them. What I am disagreeing with is his insistence that 'folk' should mean only traditional music, although I even sympathise with that. However he can't turn back the clock. 'Folk' has had a much wider meaning than this for decades, and 'folk clubs' have always included a much wider range of music.

A lot of this is down to the mid-60s period when 'folk' was briefly fashionable. Of course this was mainly modern American folk - the Dylans, Simon and Garfunkles etc and those influenced by them. I have previously suggested that this sort of folk is perhaps a lot closer to its roots in the American tradition than it is to our own, and in that context it is perhaps less of a leap to include it within the 'folk' umbrella, however much it may jar alongside the traditions of the British Isles. However the usage probably started even before then. The word means what usage tells us it means, and for most people, including most enthusiasts and certainly the general public, it encompasses more than traditional music. That's just how it is.

As the letter Jim quotes indicates, this is not a new argument and has been going on for decades. What it fails to take account of is that folk clubs of any description are first and foremost where people go for entertainment, not academic study. It is entertainment of a particular sort and I entirely agree with the notion that it should be centred around traditional song, but again it depends on the tastes and interests of the individuals involved in each individual club.

I sympathise with Jim's disappointment when a folk club fails to present any traditional songs. Such a club wouldn't be to my liking either. Nevertheless in most cases what they provide is what most people expect from a folk club.

I am more optimistic about the future of traditional music than he is. There are a lot of young people getting involved and among them there is considerable enthusiasm for traditional music. Moreover, while they sometimes have their own take in it which might be a shock to us older people, they are often far more aware, and respectful, of the tradition then I was at their age. When I first began visiting folk clubs in the early 1970s there was an unspoken assumption that (apart from a couple of survivals like the Coppers and Fred Jordan) traditional folk singers had died out with Cecil Sharp. It was some years before I became aware of the hotbed of traditional music just up the road from me in Suffolk. Young musicians now are much better informed and have far more resources to refer to.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:05 AM

'If you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.'

Ah, that's cleared that up then, it is just the romantic notion that a song has to be passed around 'orally' that makes it folk music!

Jim, if you joined us in the 21st century, you might just find that the process you describe above is still happening, the ONLY difference is that the transmission is by modern methods!

John

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 08:03 AM

"If you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.
Please report backIf you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.
Please report back"
pretty much what i said earlier in the discussion,which is particulrly funny , because Jim tried to make out i had nothing of worth to say on the subject
here is the post
Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Good Soldier Schweik - PM
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:21 PM

sometimes the new song has to take its time, but it gets picked up and sung, examples of this in ireland are.. fiddlers green and song for ireland and caledonia, all songs written by english or scottish people, but songs that mean something to people outside the uk folk revival and are assumed to be tradtional.





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Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 07:21 AM

"What might be helpful would be to hear a concise definition from Jim of those songs I would call new folk music."
You have been given a list of writers who make new songs - whether they fall into the category of 'new folk music' is a matter of debat.
Tell you what.
Write a song and give it to one of your workmates who isn't a folkie.
If you come back in a year or so's time to find that he has learned it and is singing it and has passed it on to his mates, who, in their turn have done likewise..... to the extent that your song has been accepted and sung by a significant number of people, and even maybe has been adapted into numerous versions and has reached the situation where you are no longer its owner...... then you might, just might have the makings of a folk song on your hands.
Please report back
" he's declined to give a clear answer"
I have never declined - can't say any clearer than a song that has been made using traditional forms - doesn't make it a folk song without the above happening though
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 11 Sep 14 - 06:36 AM

Bounty Hound and Howard it would appear that you are clearly, and possibly deliberately, missing the points that Jim Carroll is making.

Terribus, I can't of course speak for Howard, although I suspect his answer may well be the same.

I am in no way missing the points that Jim is making. In fact if you read earlier in the thread, you'll find me expressing admiration and respect for the work Jim has done over the years. Without the likes of Jim the tradition may well have been lost.

But, my issue is Jim's refusal to acknowledge that the process continues, and that new 'folk' music is being created today. It may be that the 'process' is different and songs are being shared in a different way, and it is easy to establish authorship and a definitive version of those songs, but of course society and technology has changed enormously in the last 60 years, Those new 'folk' songs are every bit as valid as traditional songs passed through an oral tradition, and as I've said several times, if a new song is influenced by, or shows respect to the tradition, then it has every right to be called 'Folk music'

I've asked Jim more than once to 'define' those new songs that I happily call folk, but he's declined to give a clear answer, (although he has acknowledged the value of such songs) instead stating that they are songs in the 'style' of, and then stating that folk is not a style, but a process, and a song cannot be 'folk' unless it has been through that process.

What might be helpful would be to hear a concise definition from Jim of those songs I would call new folk music.

It seems to me that it is merely a romantic notion that only songs that have gone through the 'oral' process can be folk, so perhaps it would also be useful to have a concise statement from Jim as to why he thinks that transmission by the technology we now have available (which he in part embraces, otherwise we would not be having this debate!) is less valid than oral transmission.

John